It spat out ten crushed bullets. Frr, frr. Snorting, it glared at me.
“You’re tough on the inside.”
I had struck its vital points, but in terms of compatibility, I was at a disadvantage. Left with no choice, I drew my knife and gripped it. A handgun in one hand, a knife in the other. My lips dried out, and sweat soaked my body. Close combat was always frightening.
It was just as I was about to truly settle the match.
Kwaaaang—!
A sudden, massive impact shook the surroundings, and the power went out.
The interior was plunged into pitch-black darkness. But I couldn’t panic. There was a beast here aiming for my throat.
—There has been a problem outside. The summoned beasts will soon be reverse-summoned, so cadets, stop the exam immediately and come out…
The voice from the speaker crackled and cut off.
I watched the wolf. Far from being reverse-summoned, the bastard was instead swelling its body even more threateningly.
“It’s not being reverse-summoned. Hello?”
Even when I asked, there was no reply.
It meant there must have been a Djinn among the dispatched magicians.
Jin Juhwa… no. I had already checked with the laptop. There had been no changes to him. No, to begin with, the laptop hadn’t detected any changes in anyone.
Then there was only one conclusion.
‘The Djinn dispatched here is a Djinn I don’t know.’
It was entirely possible. There were too many Djinn to estimate their numbers accurately. Extras like Kim Chundong, who had never once appeared in the story, were everywhere.
“Tsk. I knew this would happen someday.”
A new incident I hadn’t written had occurred.
My heart pounded as if it would drop from that uncertainty, but I needed to calm down first. I calmly looked through the wall into the room beside mine. Rachel seemed to be in a similar situation to me, staring down her opponent with composure and silence. But that opponent was… a person.
—Grrrraaaah!
At that moment, the Chrome Wolf roared ferociously and charged at me. I drew the weapon I had stored inside my Stigma. The Desert Eagle appeared in my previously empty hand, and the activated Aether resonated with it and fused.
It was light, and the grip fit perfectly in my hand.
First, I fired a shot into the wolf that had come right up to my nose. The bastard yelped and was sent flying.
“You got a death wish or what?”
The Desert Eagle, which I had taken out for the first time in a while, displayed far more destructive power than before, but there was no time to admire it now. I wasn’t allowed the time to look at the laptop either.
For now, Rachel in the next room was the problem.
An episode where Rachel was targeted? Of course there was one. There was a villain who wanted to overthrow not only Rachel, but the nation of Britain itself.
But it shouldn’t be time yet. Their attack was supposed to happen after they had grown their forces a bit more…
—Grrrrrr.
At the sound of growling, I narrowed my brow again and looked ahead. The Chrome Wolf that had been alone just moments ago had multiplied before I knew it: one, two, three. A total of three of them.
But I wasn’t worried.
“Hmm.”
I converted the Desert Eagle into shotgun mode.
At the same time, the three wolves leapt toward me.
What I had to do was simple.
Just shoulder the shotgun calmly and fire without wavering.
Kwaaaang—!
A thunderous gunshot erupted.
* * *
The interior had darkened in an instant. In that place, silent with cold air and suppressed killing intent, a man’s low murmur floated up icily.
“I believed a day like this would come someday.”
Rachel found the familiar language of her homeland unfamiliar. She glared at the man who had appeared from beyond the darkness. The man was wearing a robe, but Rachel felt as though she knew who he was.
In a calm tone, Rachel murmured that name.
“…Sir Lancaster.”
The former captain of the royal guard and Rachel’s former teacher. Alex Lancaster.
After vanishing several years ago when his entire family had been massacred in the “London Incident,” he had now reappeared, bearing a suffocating killing intent.
“You remember.”
A smile hung on his lips. From that sinister smile, Rachel sensed an absurdly malicious heart. Because of that, she could guess without difficulty what sort of path this man had walked until now.
“…You sold your soul.”
Lancaster shook his head. He denied Rachel’s words.
“I devoted my entire life to my country, yet my country killed everything I had. I did not sell my soul. My soul, which had wandered after my country’s betrayal, was merely taken in by a new lord.”
For an instant, sorrow spread through Rachel’s eyes. What Lancaster said was, for her as well, an all too painful memory.
“…Is that why you came to me?”
“Princess. Does it look as though I came here?”
Rachel narrowed her brow. Then she thrust out her rapier. The rapier passed straight through his body.
“I am somewhere. Just not here.”
“…”
Rachel looked behind her. The entrance remained firmly shut. For some reason, there was no sign of rescue.
Lancaster spoke with a smile.
“Outside right now is so chaotic that no one can pay attention here. Of course, if this were Britain, you would have been the top priority for protection, Princess. No matter if dozens, hundreds, or thousands of people died…”
Lancaster stopped speaking for a moment. His face, which had been smiling, had at some point twisted hideously.
“The entire people, the entire nation, would have rushed in to save you alone, Princess. What would it matter who died in the process? After all, you are Britain’s one and only hope.”
Yet when he finished speaking, a smile more relieved than anyone’s appeared on his lips.
“But not here. Here, you are merely one of many cadets.”
Rachel looked at him sadly. The resentment and hatred in his voice reached her as guilt. But Lancaster, rather, was angered by that, and clenched his teeth hard.
“You refuse to take off that mask of hypocrisy and pretense until the very end…”
Anger and remorse were soaked into the end of his words, stretched out in bitterness. Rachel gathered a small bit of courage and took one step toward him.
“Sir Lancaster…”
“I would like to converse a little longer, but there is no time now.”
But Lancaster rejected her and merely bowed his head with refinement.
“Then, Princess. Farewell.”
With that farewell, he became black mist and disappeared.
“Wait…!”
From within that mist, an assassin sprang out and swung a sword. It was a sudden surprise attack, but Rachel swept her rapier out and blocked it. In an instant, a chunk of the sword aura on her rapier was shaved away. She was horrified by the weight of magic power on an entirely different level.
But it was not merely a gap in magic power.
The assassin’s movements were agile and fierce. Her left side and shoulder. The coldly honed attacks repeatedly dug into her weak points. Sword clashed against sword, and a sharp screech of friction rang out. Hot sparks flew, and vivid blood scattered into the air.
In the face of that violent offensive, the best Rachel could do was deflect the attacks, but the more she did, the more cuts appeared across her body. By the time the pain gradually worsened, Rachel admitted that she could not defeat this assassin through a straightforward approach.
She took a gamble.
“Ugh!”
The assassin did not miss the opening she deliberately revealed. A deep gash was carved into her wrist, and her rapier fell to the floor. Sensing victory, the assassin dug in even deeper.
At that moment, Rachel’s rapier responded. The rapier was still resonating with her magic power.
The assassin trying to drive his sword into her heart, and the rapier soaring toward his neck.
Kwaaaang—!
A tremendous vibration and rough explosion cut through that hair-trigger situation.
Rachel and the assassin both lost their stances at the same time. The assassin’s blade failed to gouge out her heart, and Rachel’s rapier failed to pierce his neck.
Thud!
Another vibration rang out. This time, the right wall warped. Rachel and the assassin looked there.
Thud! Some impact struck again as if it would pierce through the wall.
At that moment, the assassin gripped his sword. Rachel also hurriedly seized her rapier with her left hand.
Thud! At the second impact, the assassin charged at Rachel. Rachel rolled her body and barely avoided him.
Thud! And then the final third strike.
The terrifying shockwave punched a round hole through the partition, and the assassin was swept away by the debris of the blast.
“Ugh, dust. Ptoo, ptoo.”
Amid the billowing acrid smoke, a man appeared.
It was a face familiar to Rachel.
Kim Hajin was there.
“…!”
The assassin hurriedly rushed toward him.
“What the hell are you?”
Kim Hajin pulled the trigger just like that.
“Aaagh!”
The shotgun shell erupting from the muzzle pushed the assassin from one end of the room to the other. It was terrifying stopping power.
Afterward, Kim Hajin walked toward the assassin embedded in the wall. Shhk— shhk— The sound of bullets being loaded into the magazine was chilling.
Click.
Rachel saw the white magic power flowing from his forearm after he finished reloading. But there was no time to question it.
Kim Hajin aimed the muzzle at the assassin. He had no hesitation in finishing him off. Without delay, he fired the shotgun.
At that moment, a white flash unlike anything before dyed the surroundings.
────────────────────────────────────
>
The “Destructive Power Amplification Shotgun Shells” I had prepared in case of emergency cost 50 SP per shot.
I had used ordinary bullets on the wolves, but in order to break through the wall and kill the assassin, I had used five of these “special bullets.” In other words, a total of 250 SP had vanished in an instant. Still, to break through the exam hall’s wall, I would have needed about that much anyway, and in the end I had saved Rachel, so I didn’t particularly feel it was a waste.
“Um…”
I held out my hand to Rachel, who had collapsed. Rachel stared blankly at my hand, then pushed herself up from the floor. With my awkwardly left-hanging hand, I just scratched my cheek.
“…”
Rachel suddenly looked at the right wall. Because of what my shotgun had done about three minutes ago, the exam hall’s reinforced wall had been ripped open as if torn apart.
“Ah. When the power was cut, the mana barrier disappeared.”
Feeling strangely guilty under her gaze, I offered an excuse she hadn’t even asked for.
Rachel’s eyes rolled over and this time stopped on the shotgun I was holding. I hurriedly shoved it into my cross bag. It was too long and wouldn’t fit. I turned around, converted it back into handgun form, and put it inside.
“M-More importantly.”
I looked at Rachel’s body. There wasn’t a single place on her body that wasn’t wounded, and a considerable amount of blood still hadn’t stopped flowing.
I definitely should have been worried about that, but why did the “Seed of Evandel” suddenly come to mind? Of course, Rachel’s blood could become healthy nourishment for Evandel, but…
“You have a lot of injuries.”
I undid the belt bag strapped around my waist. If I were to describe this belt bag, it was an all-purpose first-aid kit created from all of my anxiety, fear, and premature cowardice combined.
Antidotes, potions, resistance medicine, tranquilizers, bandages, gauze, and so on… almost every kind of medical supply was crammed in here. Recovery potions, and among them an “Emergency Trauma Potion,” were naturally included in that list as well.
It was a somewhat expensive potion, but compared to Rachel’s blood, it was cheap.
“This is a potion. An Emergency Trauma Potion.”
When I held up the glass bottle filled with red liquid, Rachel’s eyes went round for an instant.
“Before I apply it, I’ll wipe away the blood first, okay?”
For some reason, I grew nervous, and saliva pooled in my mouth. I swallowed and asked.
“…”
Rachel nodded. I had been given permission.
First, I wiped the blood flowing from the many wounds on her left arm with gauze. I didn’t put that gauze just anywhere; I stacked it neatly. After that, I soaked another piece of gauze with the potion and applied it to her skin.
Rachel bit her teeth together at once. Applying the potion directly stung quite a bit. It was like putting on red antiseptic.
I was planning to treat her slowly, starting from her left arm, when Rachel suddenly grabbed me.
For the first time, she spoke to me.
“…Here first.”
Saying that, she held out her right wrist.
It was a serious wound. Her flesh and muscle had been cut through entirely, exposing white bone, and if it had been just a little deeper, her wrist would have been severed altogether—a fatal injury. And yet, as if Rachel was blocking the wound with magic power, there was strangely no bleeding at all.
“Whoa! What the hell. You should’ve shown me this first.”
I was genuinely surprised. From the outside, it looked like nothing but scratches, so I had been fussing over the blood for no reason—only to find there was a wound that couldn’t be left untreated.
“You almost wouldn’t have been able to hold a sword if we’d been even a little later.”
Even an emergency trauma potion that cost a whopping six to seven million won a bottle wasn’t omnipotent. Especially with delicate things like nerves—if they weren’t healed immediately after being damaged, there were many cases where not only potions, but even the authority of healing could do nothing.
“This will hurt a lot.”
I poured the remaining half of the potion into the cut on her wrist, then wrapped a bandage over it.
“Kyaaang.”
It must have been an incredible pain. Even so, Rachel endured it with a single short scream. I wrapped the bandage two and three times around her trembling wrist. With that, the treatment was finished.
The moment I let go of her wrist, Rachel collapsed face-down onto the floor and began stamping her feet. Maybe that was what it felt like to put Albothyl inside your mouth.
Afterward, I picked up the bloodstained gauze and put it into my crossbody bag.
Now, partly to wait for Rachel to recover, I turned on my laptop. Since I had recognized a change in the setting, there was, as expected, a message waiting.
[Lancaster Alex]
[Attachment to the family lost in the accident has deepened. His anger has also intensified, increasing the possibility that he will attack Rachel if the opportunity arises, without waiting to build up his forces.]
[Potential adjusted upward to become a greater threat (7.5 → 8.5)]
“Hmm……”
Lancaster Alex.
The man called Lancaster Alex was one of the England-related characters I had set up. He was a villain who appeared in the middle part of the story, and his goal was the overthrow of the nation of England.
A fairly serious villain had appeared far too early, and stronger than he had been in the original. It was damned annoying, but what could I do?
If I’d known this would happen, I would’ve set up a whole bunch of good guys instead.
Of course, there were good guys too. A secret agent from MI6 who would become a great help to Rachel—his name was James John. Since I had based him on “that agent” everyone knew, there was no doubting his unwavering patriotism and loyalty.
“……Huu.”
A faint breath sounded from beside me. As if she had somehow overcome the pain, her face was covered in sweat, but her expression looked much better. Rachel staggered to her feet and bowed her head to me.
“Thank you.”
“Ah……”
At that moment, the power suddenly came back on, and everything around us brightened. Inevitably, any further conversation was cut short.
Rachel and I approached the door of the exam room together.
I grasped the doorknob and slowly pushed. Unlike before, when it had been firmly shut, this time it opened without much trouble.
Stepping into the hallway, I looked at the exam room on the opposite side. Unfortunately, as if they hadn’t managed to get out, the bodies of two cadets lay sprawled inside.
It was distressing, but there was nothing I could do right now.
I walked out into the corridor. The waiting room where a hundred cadets had been waiting for the exam had already become a scene of chaos.
Then, thud, thud.
I heard footsteps coming down the stairs. Rachel suddenly took a guarded stance. I merely smiled as I looked at her.
“Yes. Fortunately, the power has been restored……”
It was Kim Suhyeok’s voice. Kim Suhyeok was coming down while talking to someone over the radio, but when he saw us, he flinched and stopped.
“You two, what are you doing here? No, more importantly, why did you come back?”
“Come back?”
“I’m sure you two……”
Kim Suhyeok abruptly stopped talking, as if a thought had crossed his mind. I, too, had a rough idea of what had happened. A Djinn who could create tangible illusions—there could easily be one.
“There are two more people inside.”
“Ah, damn it! You two wait here—no. Hurry and run to the infirmary!”
Kim Suhyeok dashed into the exam room at full speed. As his back was swallowed by the corridor, I looked at Rachel. Then I spoke quietly.
“Um, I might have to lie a little later, so if the situation comes up, please match your story to mine. If they find out I brought in a privately made weapon, I’ll get suspended.”
At my request, Rachel nodded.
* * *
……After that tremendous commotion, in the exam waiting room where everyone had left. From within the shadows of that silent place where nothing moved, darkness suddenly surged upward. As it gathered and swelled this way and that, it soon took the shape of a person.
It was a cute boy of small stature.
A deep smile was drawn on the boy’s lips.
“Boss. Boss! I just saw something amazing.”
This boy had come to protect Kim Hajin on the boss’s orders.